


Daughter of the Wolf

by Kali_Blue



Series: A World in Red [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friendship, Grumpy Dracolisks, Kieran is grown up, M/M, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Romance, Slow Burn, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-05 00:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4159059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kali_Blue/pseuds/Kali_Blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a confrontation at Redcliffe with a time travel spell gone awry, Dorian Pavus and the Inquisitor are sent one year into an apocalyptic future where the Elder One rules with an iron fist. The spell is reversed, however, after they manage to undo the events set in motion by a mad mage. Both are returned safely to their own safe, if war-torn, world.</p>
<p>Sounds simple, but what if in one instance events don’t transpire in the way the way they ought. What if, say, two elves meet way before a deadly rift splits open the sky? What if a spell caused two people to land months earlier at Redcliffe than they were meant to?</p>
<p>To Fen, an elven mage who's spent her entire life wandering across a lyrium-infested Thedas, the story sounded little a fantastic and more than a bit hard to swallow. Even more so, perhaps, when it came from the mouths of half-mad spirits and a man who is not only the son of the Witch of the Wilds, but also in possession of the soul of an Old-god.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A World of Red

**Author's Note:**

> Had a recent craving to do a Dragon Age fic - partially inspired by reading to many other dragon age fics, and also playing to much Dragon Age: Inquisition. Hope you enjoy it. :)

We are here  
We have waited  
We have slept  
We are sundered  
We are crippled  
We are polluted  
We endure  
We wait  
We have found the dreams again  
We will awaken

 

***

 

I had a dream, once. Of a white-haired young man standing in a wintery world wearing nothing but an ugly wide-brimmed hat with dark shirt and leggings. He didn’t seem to feel the cold or the fierce storm battering at his back. Instead he grasped my hand as though it were an anchor. I feared I was doing the same - and I utterly failed to understand why. 

If I had a mind to describe the man in front of me, I would say he had the soul of a poet, but I believed even that failed to encompass the magnitude of what the white-haired man was and what he shared with me.

“It wasn’t your fault. She made that choice. Not you. She created what should not be.  
But you are you, in this here and in this now, you allow this world to exist.  
I am me, in this here and in this now, but I am not me.  
I lost it at Haven, so I lost me.  
You. Don’t lose you. Don’t lose it. Without you, this world ceases to be.”

He hesitated at the last part, biting at his lip and an anxiousness entering his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He squeezed my hand, whether to reassure himself or me, I didn’t know. 

“Should you fix what should not be?”

***

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Iron Bull used to chant it a lot on our travels, to the point it drove me batty. It was an old saying. One he used right up until the time that he died.

That, and ‘ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall’ seemed to be a favourite.

It was still an apt metaphor for the context and, gazing over the lyrium infested waters of Ferelden, I was inclined to agree. It looked like a lake of blood.

It was an unnerving but common sight. The once gorgeous forests surrounding the lake, beautiful and terrible even during the war, was now an ugly, blackened landscape pocked with red lyrium nodes. The only splashes of colour were the angry crimson veins of lyrium which riddled the dead, twisted trees.

Iron Bull had once told me by the fireside that the sickly green sky had once been blue. That Fade rifts - bright, blinding emerald cracks in the sky and on the land leading to the veil, were far more rare. As bad as things had been, he’d said with a wistfulness that’d made me catch my breath, a war-torn and broken Ferelden had been better than a dead Ferelden.

As for Thedas as a whole, well, the situation was little better, or so I’d heard. Most of the population were either dead, dying or mad.

It was truly interesting, then, that I had not gone as mad as the qunari who had raised me. I was certainly not a dwarf, whose resistance to lyrium in general had allowed them just enough time to shut themselves away in their underground kingdoms. Not a one had been seen in decades.

Appearance wise I was elven, possessing the same delicately pointed ears, sharp facial features and lean frame of my kind. I’d had little to no contact with them over the years, though, so I was somewhat estranged with my elven culture, both dalish and otherwise.

It was of little consequence really. My sanity aside, I still showed the effects of exposure to red lyrium just like everyone else. While most of it was hidden by well-worn leggings and loose-fitting tunic, my pale skin still exposed arms and face with veins tinged with red, and once green eyes now possessed a noticeable crimson tint. I was lucky, if one could call it that, as the more unfortunate of us obtained a rather unpleasant glow and a metallic cadence to their voice that was rather akin to listening to nails on a chalkboard.

However bad it was, it didn’t matter. To quote the Bull, we were all the same now. It’d been a strange comfort to the qunari in his final days.

A head butted me from behind and I turned to encounter the hopeful yellow eyes of my dracolisk mount.

‘Sorry girl,’ I said, patting her massive head and sighing. ‘No water here. Perhaps further west. Less lyrium there.’

An exasperated noise followed by a more insistent head butt.

‘West, Kali. West. There’s water. I promise. Just a little while longer.’

The next noise from Kali sounded suspiciously like an annoyed donkey.

‘I can’t give you what I don’t have.’

This time the dracolisk outright growled.

I let out an annoyed puff of air. True to her species, Kali was a temperamental creature. With their lizard-like heads and fondness for meat, the dracolisk was a distant cousin to dragons, or so I’d been told, but they tended to closely mimic the movements and speed of an equine. My particular dracolisk had blue scaling with a yellow underbelly, a scaly blue tail, and a grouping of horns on top of her head which trailed halfway down her spine.

And bright, yellow eyes, the very same ones which were glaring at me as though I was one responsible for our current predicament. Cousin to dragons, indeed, as no drinkable water in sight meant living with a very grumpy mount, ‘urg. Dried fish, then?’

I reached over my shoulder and around my staff for my pack, pulling out one of the treats I usually kept in reserve for when the dracolisk had been _good_. The growl was considerably toned down but my hand almost bitten off when Kali snatched it from my fingers.

I settled on a grassy patch by the lake, taking care not to meet Kali in the eye. I pointed towards the trees instead. ‘Take it over there, missy. I don’t want to hear your munching… no… over there. No… not near my ears. No… don’t bother giving me the evil eyeball either. Over there.’

Eventually she did as I bid, but not before my irritated mount swung around and made sure to brain me with her scaly tail. Not enough for a concussion, mind, just enough to ensure I’d having a great whopping headache for the next few days.

‘I hope you choke on it!’ I called back to her, rubbing my throbbing skull. If I didn’t know better, I could have sworn her answering honk as she disappeared into the dead trees sounded like a laugh.

Some peace and quiet at last.

Closing my eyes and placing my staff and pack beside me, I maneuvered myself into a more comfortable sitting position and drew in a breath. As a Rift Mage it had been hard, very hard, once upon a time, to learn to reach for the Fade and communicate with the spirits that resided there. Ironically as the years went by and lyrium spread, it had become far easier to feel for the veil.

Like spending too much time around lyrium, it was also a good way to lose one’s mind if one spent too much time in that otherworldly realm or drew too much on its power. Thank goodness, then, that the one that I searched for now did not reside within the Fade.

It took a few moments, but a chirp below me indicated I had been successful in my reaching.

I let a wistful smile take over my face and looked down to find a small fennec in my lap. A small, fox-like animal with oversized ears, silky brown fur and a bushy tail, he gazed at me with intelligent brown eyes. He was also horribly calm for an animal known for its skittishness.

The second chirp this time was questioning.

‘Hello gorgeous,’ I all but crooned, rubbing the fennec between the ears in a way I knew he liked. ‘I’m sorry, I know you don’t like being so close to the lyrium but I’m getting desperate. Any leads to a water source would be much appreciated. Any leads at all.’

***

The fennec did find water, leading me down a tiny, overgrown path to a small clearing. In its centre lay a pond partially obscured by half-dead shrubbery, but clean and untouched by the taint. He promptly disappeared as soon as we stopped, but that didn’t worry me. It was his way and he’d done as I’d asked - where he chose to go in his own time was his own business.

It was a welcome sight. The body flopped on the ground beside it? Not so much.

It was a body, curiously, not infested with lyrium. A young dark-haired human in little more than bloody rags, spread eagled with a leg half in the water. And a mage, judging from the staff clutched in his left hand. The tight grip even in death was not surprising - many mages considered their instrument as an extension of themselves, myself included. He was perhaps not long gone from this world judging by the distinct lack of decomposition, but he still reeked. Immediately suspicious and without looking down, I undid the rope tying my staff down to Kali’s saddle and dismounted.

My thirsty mount, bless her, did not share my hesitation, and instead perked up at the sight of water. I whirled around and snatched the dracolisk’s reins before she could amble off, forcing Kali’s head up and causing her to squeal in protest, ‘just. Wait.’

I paused and sniffed the air again. No. Not the reek of death. The smell of sweat. Blood. Fever. _Dying but not dead._

An alive, unconscious body. I signalled to Kali to stay and tip-toed towards the water, bringing my staff to the front of my body. It was a rather ugly looking thing with a knotted top, but had been modified so that the bottom tapered off into a graceful, curved blade. I suspected the blade was dwarven.

It was the blade end, now, that I rested lightly on the young man’s throat.

When it failed to get him to respond I pressed slightly harder - not enough to cut skin. It still did the trick and forced him back to consciousness. The man’s eyes flew open, filled with pain and delirious with fever, and I let myself stare for a second. They were yellow eyes, almost cat-like. How odd, ‘I believe you must be acquainted with the fennec if he’s lead me to you.’

Too weak to answer, but the man was lucid enough to give a slight nod. That decided it.

‘Try anything and I’ll let my dracolisk eat you. Slowly,’ I said calmly, but my threat was not an idle one (I still ignored the interested growl from behind me). Didn’t matter if the man was dying and unable to move - even a half dead mage was a dangerous one.

I immediately got down to business. Time was of the essence, after all, ‘so, mage, we have two choices here. One: I can simply fill my water skin, slit your throat, and be on my way. It’ll be a messy but quick death. It would be the easier option for me, you see, and perhaps better for us both. Would you prefer that?’

The widened, desperate eyes told me that option hadn’t even crossed his mind. Still, I had to ask.

I shrugged, ‘then on to option two. I can stop the bleeding and try to save you. Again, it’ll be messy, and painful, and most likely you’ll die anyway. You’re not infected – don’t even know how that’s possible unless you’re a Seeker. That’s something else you need to consider, because no matter how resistant you are to the lyrium, give or take a few months and you could be belching out the same damn song and dance routine the Red Templars like to give before they fling themselves from some high elven ruin. Knowing that risk, are you still sure you really want to live?’

I heaved out a resigned when there was no change in his expression. He wanted to live. At the very least, I did owe it to the fennec to try and save the man.

I took in a quick inventory of his wounds: shallow gashes on the arms, legs and face - a particularly nasty one on his cheek that would likely leave a scar. It was that dagger wound to the gut I was worried about, and he was bleeding out. He was keeping himself alive through a combination of magic and his own will. I felt a tiny flicker of admiration at that, but it was still against my better judgement when I knelt beside the strange mage, letting stray pieces of rift magic gather around me for strength as I dove into my own mana to prepare a healing spell.

It was as much to myself as the mage that I added the next words, ‘better pray to your maker we don’t get caught by either the Seekers or the Red Templars. They will find us, one way or another and if they do, well, let’s just say it’ll be you wishing you had flung yourself off of some high tower. Please, please, _try not to scream as I heal you_ , because too much noise and the time they take to find us will be that much shorter.’


	2. The Strange Mage

I had to stuff a rag in his mouth in the end.

The whole process of healing the mage went exactly as I’d expected. It was difficult, and messy, and painful. Quite understandably, the mage dove for oblivion when he could - but only to suddenly be brought back to the land of the living when my mana forced the bleeding to stop and skin to knit itself together.

As I drew my hands away from the man’s unconscious body and dragged a forearm across my brow, I became very aware of the pains of my body - found my sight blurring and body screaming at me for rest. Yes, that sounded like a good idea. Kali nudged my shoulder, made a low groaning noise that sounded very much like worry, so I brought my hand up to pat her nose, ‘I’m all right, girl. I just need rest, that’s all.’

When I tried to lift myself up my body had other ideas – seemed, in fact, to want to move towards the ground.

‘Oh, well, that’s definitely not good,’ I said to the dracolisk, ‘sorry girl, you might have to keep watch over us for a few hours. Don’t know how much longer I can stay awake at this rate.’  

A chirp to my left caught my attention and I looked down to encounter the fennec sitting by my knee, tail curled neatly around his paws. He rested his head on my leg. I sighed and rubbed his oversized ears.

‘You have such an odd way of asking for favours. It’s never for yourself, oh no, always for somebody else’s sake,’ I grumbled.

I took the noise to mean agreement.

‘If you want him to live we need somewhere to hide, nearby, for at least a few weeks,’ I informed the fennec, and the animal titled his head as though listening. The lick of my finger and the yip I took as a yes, so I smiled and mouthed a quick thank you before flopping lifelessly to the ground. The last thing I heard before I was dragged into oblivion was Kali’s cry of alarm.

****

We were lead to a vine-covered ruin not far north of the ruins of Redcliffe, far too close for my liking to an ancient castle once host to a madman henchman of the Elder One. It was elven structure with ancient, looming stone walls and two tall half crumbling spires.

When I entered the crumbling structure the magic that permeated the air was so thick I could almost touch it, and the walls whispered in an ancient, dead language. It prickled at my awareness so much and I stopped so abruptly that Kali all but stomped on my foot. Still, I believe it may have been occupied as recently as a few decades ago, judging by the collapsed pieces of furniture all around and hanging, tattered portraits of noble humans unfamiliar to me.

With the body of the mage flopped over the saddle like a ragdoll, I had to very slowly coax the dracolisk inside, but she still let out a nervous growl as we entered.

No lyrium crystals or nodes in sight or around the general area, oddly. One day I would find out what it was about that ancient magic that seemed to repel red lyrium.

We settled ourselves in a small room on the eastern side, in what I assumed was once a servant’s quarters judging by the scarcity of furniture and the collapsed wooden remains of three beds. A tiny fire place stood in the corner. The beds made for good kindling as I started a fire and settled the mage down in the middle of the room.

The man was in and out of consciousness for the better part of two days.

And still the process had to go on. It was an endless, tedious cycle of healing and care – slowly, slowly knitting serrated muscles and skin together, burning off infection, making sure the man stayed hydrated and fed with what little I had.

Luckily, there was an unusual overabundance of small wildlife and water around the ruins blessedly untainted by lyrium, nugs and fennecs, mostly, so in between those periods I was out setting snares the way Iron Bull had taught me. I ended up trapping some decently sized nugs.

By the third day the man was delirious with fever, thrashing at nothing and screaming obscenities at some imagined foe. At one point the man wrapped his arms weakly around my neck, tears streaming down his face and proclaimed that he’d give anything, anything, if I’d just stopped the pain. Make it all stop. I wasn’t entirely sure if he was referring to the healing or to something else.                                                                                                                               

It was when his fingers slid away that I discovered just exactly just what he was. It was buried inside of him, well hidden and yet lurking just below the surface of his soul, deep and dark and old. Without panicking I brushed the presence ever so slightly aside with my mana, trying to appear non-threatening and respectful while it bared its teeth slightly before promptly dismissing me.

And it was by the fourth day, late in the afternoon, that I returned from hunting and entered the room to find the man wrapped in blankets and staring at the fire.

I put my kill down in the corner of the room, a small fennec caught barely an hour before, and settled myself next to the man.

The man met my eyes, and again I was struck by the strange colour. What did they remind me of? Ah – They spoke of the wilds, of the deep forests and running with wolves. The man’s previously unmarred face with its high cheekbones and strong jaw now sported a new scar running up his cheek, but all things considered I thought I’d done rather well for a mage with only a few basic healing spells in her repertoire.

Before I became too enamored of them I all but forced my water skin in his hands, an eyebrow rising when he looked at it as though dumbfounded.

‘Drink,’ I insisted, moving back.

Finally the mage seemed to understand, bringing it to only slightly shaky lips, took a deep gulp and set the skin in his lap. He took a breath, ‘er… um. Thank you. _Ir Falon Kieran. Iras_ … Nope, nope I lost it. Haven’t spoken dalish in a while. Probably a bad thing, you know, Mother was always on my case to learn the damn language and I was always thinking of ways to avoid it. So, um, yeah, do you speak human?’

He shuffled awkwardly among the blankets when I stared, mouth ajar at the onslaught of speech that spewed from the man’s lips.

‘You don’t? Well, this is rather awkward. Erm… _Iras Ghilas…’_

I put a flustered hand up and shook my head.

The man, Kieran, I think, leaned forward almost curiously at my lack of response, ‘no, wait, I wonder if you even understand what I’m saying. I haven’t had much contact with the lyrium infected. The time it takes is different for everyone, of course, but I heard they lost their sanity as time went on. So, do you lose the ability to speak as well?’

How was the man speaking so much after his ordeal? It was husky with weakness and yet he was still talking with little pauses. I gulped and managed to croak out, ‘Yes… yes, I can. Stop… please. Just stop talking.’

Wisely, the mage closed his mouth and was silent.

I rubbed my temples, ‘okay, okay. Kieran, did you say? Yes, yes I can talk. And dance and sing if need be. No, I am not dalish, thank your maker for that, but please don’t try to speak in that language again unless you can talk in more than butchered sentences.’

‘You’re not dalish?’

I gestured to my face, one bereft of the blood writing that characterised the elven tribes even today, ‘do you see a vallaslin?’

‘Bit hard to tell these days under those veins.’

‘I suppose,’ I tilted my head, considering, ‘And that’s something you’ll have to deal with shortly. I don’t know who you are and where you came from - I suspect you’re a runaway Seeker - even that immunity to won’t be much good after extended contact with the lyrium.’

The man’s eyes flickered with something like guilt - seemed I was pretty close to the mark. I riffled through my thoughts, trying to dig out information on what little I knew about the once secretive organisation. Iron Bull had once told me that it was an Andrastian order that _used_ to act as a check and balance for the power of the old Templar Order. Now? Well, now their sole purpose of existence and reason for being was to the eradication of the Red Templars and the lyrium-infected.

As if killing off the remaining population of Thedas would act as a cure to an already dead and poisoned land.

I stumbled on runaways occasionally on my travels - usually with more items than what Kieran had, it’s true, but they were all the same. The same dead eyed, weary, hollowed out look on the lot of them. What was so bad about the order that they’d risk madness by running away from an organisation that had managed to remain, for the most part, resistant to the effects of red lyrium?

‘Oh, never fear,’ the mage said with a false heartiness and breaking me from my wandering thoughts. His mouth was a thin line, ‘not through my own choice or doing, but I am immune. Permanently immune.’

‘Does that have something to do with the spirit inside you?’ I asked bluntly.

Kieran blinked once. Twice. For the second time in a few days something ancient, raging, furious, came to the surface of those amber eyes. Ignoring the chills running down my spine I immediately went for the staff lying at my side.

‘I believe the correct epithet used for my kind is _Maleficarum_ ,’ Kieran said. The words came out a growl.

‘If the chantry still existed!’ I hissed back, voice equally low and threatening, ‘you would have been called such. From a time you and I would have been branded as apostates and burned at the stake. There’s no need to bring up old epithets from a world long gone.’

And just like that, the anger subsided and Kieran’s body went slack, ‘sorry.’    

‘That’s quite alright,’ I mumbled, my own back unclenching from the tension. I placed my staff to the side again and for a second there was silence. Kieran looked away, biting his lip as though thinking.

Before either of us did something we would regret, I stood and walked out. I’d take my fury out on some poor nug and not the almost-helpless man sitting by the fire.

****

The next two days passed, shall we say, rather awkwardly. Except for occasional grunts of acknowledgement or thanks, we came to an _unspoken agreement not to speak_ to each other as Kieran continued to mend. He healed at a rather accelerated rate this time - a by-product of what I was assuming was the spirit inside of him.

I decided to break the deadlock first, ‘So. I believe we share a mutual friend.’

Poking at his food and with his back to the fire, Kieran looked up, ‘the fennec?’

I nodded.

Kieran frowned thoughtfully. ‘A ‘friend’ might be overstating it but… yes, I do know _what_ he is – if not _who_ he is. The blood tells all – even in a small animal.’

I frowned at him in turn, though my expression was not nearly as thoughtful, ‘I trust the fennec. I owe him my life many times over - I trust his judgement enough that I bothered to save yours. Otherwise, and don’t take this the wrong way, I would have left you to rot.’

Kieran rolled his eyes, ‘I’m flattered.’

I glared at him and continued, ‘I can’t exactly ask him why he did it, though, so care to share what you were doing in the middle of the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on your back and bleeding half to death?’

Kieran quite visibly hesitated, glancing away and avoiding my eyes. Maker, but the man was terrible at hiding his emotions – there were far too many tells on his face to hide the thoughts running through his brain.

‘If you’re worried about me giving you up to the Seekers, don’t be,’ I said wryly. ‘I’m lyrium infected, remember? Seekers do not _like_ the lyrium infected. We are the equivalent of the _maleficar_ from decades ago.’

The man gave me a sideways glance, ‘you don’t exactly _act_ lyrium infected.’

‘There are degrees of madness, Kieran.’

‘Yes, that’s true. It’s just your blood doesn’t… sing… like others I’ve encountered. Is that the right word? Your blood counteracts the song. _It’s Old blood. Ancient blood. Blood of Andraste and blood of the wolf.’_

Kieran’s eyes had gone glassy and I froze, half broken memories and dreams rising from the darkest depths of my mind. A feeling of dread spread through my chest when something with sharp teeth and ancient eyes threatened to grab me and drag me under to… what? I didn’t know. My body moved forward against my will.

I shook my head vigorously, breathing in through my nose, and pushed the dreams away – only to realise that I’d jumped on top of Kieran and presented a dagger to his throat.

‘I can’t entirely help it – if that’s any consolation.’ He said, eyes sad, and surprisingly calm for a man who was an inch away from death. I hurled myself off him and scuttled backwards, landing on my backside unceremoniously. I placed my face in my hands.

Kieran, a thin trickle of blood dribbling down his throat, drew himself back up and rubbed his neck. ‘Well, then, I fear this second conversation seems to be going about as well as the last. I’d prefer that not to be the defining attribute of our relationship so tell you what – how about we start again? My name is Kieran. I’m a mage, same as you. I’m associated with the Seekers as you’ve correctly guessed, and am also a maleficar. Thank you very much for saving my life. And you are?’

I lifted my head and bit my lip, hard enough to draw blood. I hesitated.

‘Too much? How about we start with your name, then.’ The mage, face oddly kind for a man who’d just almost had his life cut short. Again.

I actually had to pause and think about it. When was the last time somebody had spoken it out loud? ‘My name is Fen.’


	3. Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kieran and Fen have a conversation. A vague one.

_‘So,’ Kieran had settled himself back into the blankets, wrapped himself up so much that only his head could be seen. He blinked at the crackling flames and_ _nudged himself closer to the fire._

_I sat next to him, cross-legged and straight backed, fighting the urge to shake him down and demand answers that, perhaps, I didn't quite have the right to ask._ _I wanted to know it all. Why was he bonded to such a powerful creature? Why would he choose to go through the ritual? It was a slightly morbid curiosity, one borne from spending a great chunk of my life in the Fade. I was honest enough to admit I wouldn't have been half as interested had he not been bound to the spirit.. I may have even abandoned him, in fact, if it hadn't been for my promise to the fennec.  
_

_He nodded to me and decided to begin, oddly, by asking me a question, ‘you sense what is within me, do you not?’_

_I tilted my head curiously, but nodded to his query, ‘the spirit.’_

_‘Even mages feared the maleficarum prior to the Elder Ones ascension. Yet you, Fen, are surprisingly calm about my current… condition.’_

_‘I’m a Rift Mage. I’ve walked in the Fade all my life,’ I trailed off as if that explained everything, which of course it did not._

_‘Yes, I’m aware. Yet even for a Rift Mage, your magic is connected to the Fade and to spirits in a way few mages are. It’s why the fennec and the few spirits still wandering this world are so attracted to your presence.’_

_‘You know that much just from reading my blood?’_

_‘It’s been that way since I was a child.’_

_‘So. You sense magic in the blood as a side-effect of being what you are?’ It was a half-guess.  
_

_‘Not… quite, but I suppose that’s one way to put it,' Kieran gave me a half-smile at my nonplussed expression, and shrugged a shoulder at his own vague answer._

_‘I’m surprised you were able to keep yourself hidden for so long. You would have needed a protector,’ I murmured. There was no doubt in my mind that Kieran would have needed protection, in some form, if he’d been in the order for a number of years. There was absolutely no way his condition would have been general knowledge._

_‘A protection that has recently ceased to be,’ Kieran not only agreed with my assertion but neatly sidestepped the question of the identity of his protector. I let it go for the moment. ‘And I was discovered rather quickly. A simple training accident on the battlements, a young mage who'd lost control of his magic-thought he could bite off more than he could chew- only ended up burning himself and several others around him. Me included.’ Kieran appeared both embarrassed and chastened, ‘the healers found out the same way you did, by poking too much around my magic and_ not _spending enough time healing my body. There was something ‘off’ about my mana, apparently.' Kieran breathed through his nose, as though fighting off a painful memory, 'when I’m that badly hurt, near death, is when he usually shows himself. He saved my life, as he’s done so many times before, but it also means he’s far easier to detect if another mage has the right… abilities. I don’t entirely blame the curiosity, not when you’re in an organisation whose whole existence used to revolve around secrecy and espionage. Unfortunately, I was discovered by a faction who have rather… traditional… ideas around the ‘appropriate methods’ of dealing with a maleficcarum when one is in their presence. Naturally, I was betrayed and imprisoned. I don’t know what they had in store for me. Nothing good.’_

_‘And how did you escape?’_

_‘It was the fennec who helped me escape – he stole the keys right out from under the nose of the guard and made him forget that he even had them in the first place! Repeated the process for every person on the way out. They would see us – and then they wouldn’t.’ He gave me a half-smile again which I was beginning to associate with him as normal, ‘the worst part wasn’t even scaling the wall, trust me, I almost fell three times. It was that I almost froze to death on the way down the mountain.’_

_At the question in my eyes he raised a hand, ‘And before you ask, no, I’d had almost no contact with him prior to my escape. I don’t even know why he helped me. I’ve seen him lurking around Skyhold occasionally, true, even watching me from time to time, yet that was the extent of our ‘contact’’, Kieran chuckled. ‘I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, though, even if that horse was a fox.’_

_‘Why were you so badly injured when I found you?’ He certainly hadn’t been in any condition to scale a wall._

_Embarrassment briefly crossed the mage’s eyes, ‘Oh. Well, Red Templars are drawn to noise, as it turns out, and I may have been screaming a little too loudly. In my defense, I’ve never seen a lyrium-infested nug before. And I thought the normal ones were ugly.’_

_While it did explain the wounds, it was through sheer force of will that I managed to keep a straight face. ‘And what happened before that?’_

_‘Before what?’_

_‘You’ve given me the tail end of a story.’ Also one full of holes, but I would get to that later._

_Kieran’s lips twitched in the corners and his eyes crinkled in something like amusement, ‘another day, perhaps. When I trust you more. And when we’re both awake.’_

_‘What do you mean?’_

_‘Didn’t notice that, did you?” Shaking himself free of his blankets, the mage lifted an arm and cupped my cheek with his hand. The movement was relaxed, almost languid, and it suddenly struck me as peculiar that I hadn’t even been startled. Normally, the action would have had me reaching for my staff. Instead I felt incredibly calm - almost lethargic. Kieran thumbed a vein running parallel of my eye. ‘And here we thought you were a bit more observant than that. You seem to have trouble telling the difference between dreaming and being awake, but I suppose that’ll come with experience. And the answer is yes.’_

_‘I didn’t ask you anything.’_

_‘I wasn’t talking to you.’_

_There was a chirp to my right before I was tossed out of the dream._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there.
> 
> Not sure about this chapter with how it turned out but, meh, it's meant to provide a vague backstory so I can build from there. 
> 
> As always, hope you enjoyed it and thanks for reading. :D


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